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A Nose For Joomla

This is a custom coding standard for the PHP CodeSniffer that attempts to codify and enforce the Joomla coding standards.

Why?

- Coherent and consisting coding practice makes the files look more professional. Conflicting styles in the same project (or worse, the same file) not only look sloppy, they encourage further sloppiness.

- When all code complies with the same standard, bad code is easier for everyone to spot.

- It makes it easier for someone new to a particular file in the project to find and fix errors, or extend functionality.

- If there is no consistent standard maintained, the sometimes developers will reformat the code to suit themselves. This causes a wide range of changes in the code repository, and if there is a later problem, a significant change could be lost in the chaff produced by a diff.

Installation

First of all you have to install the PHP CodeSniffer. This set of files is intended to work with phpcs version 1.3, so behavior with any other version is undefined. One way to do this is to start the console (cmd.exe in windows environments) and type:

pear install PHP_CodeSniffer-1.3.2

Pear will handle the whole installation by itself.

Then download and unzip the Joomla! CodeSniffer and copy the contents of it into /path/to/PHP_CodeSniffer/Standards/Joomla.

In Unix systems this path is usualy /usr/lib/php/PHP/PHP_CodeSniffer/Standards/Joomla but this varies from system to system. Windows based system with XAMPP have the following path: PATH_TO_XAMMP\php\PEAR\PHP\CodeSniffer\Standards (for example: C:\xampp\php\PEAR\PHP\CodeSniffer\Standards)

Use

pear config-get php_dir

to find out where the PEAR directory is on your system, then add "/PHP/PHP_CodeSniffer/Standards" to it.

Usage

You invoke the custom standard by

phpcs --standard=Joomla file/to/sniff

To test a platform file using the provided platform coding standards use

You are now able to sniff for code violations against common standards like PEAR or Zend etc.

To sniff against your own standards, all you have to do is specify their location and activate them (see screen shot 2)

Window => Preferences

PHP Tools => PHP CodeSniffer

Happy sniffing

PHPStorm

PHPStorm 4.x

CodeSniffer is supported out of the box, just go to settings, and under "Inspections" you will see Joomla (*)

(*) if you are using Xampp and did unpack Joomla CodeSniffer rules under \xampp\php\PEAR\PHP\CodeSniffer\Standards\Joomla

1) PHPStorm 4.x CodeSniffer

PHPStorm 3.x

There is currently no plugin available, but the CodeSniffer can be integrated easily as an external tool (phpStorm will support CodeSniffer in Version 4.x. It can be used already in the EAP / Beta: phpStorm Blog). PHPStorm will display the output in the console, including clickable links containing line and column numbers to the files that contain errors.

Click on "Settings" and search for "External tools"

Click "Add..."

Choose a "name", "Group" and "Description".

Click "Output Filters"

Click "Add...", Choose a name and enter under "Regular expression to match output" the value: $FILE_PATH$:$LINE$:$COLUMN$

"Program": Search for the phpcs executable on your system. You have to set the path to the phpcs.bat from the installed PHP_CodeSniffer PEAR package

for Unix based systems the path is something like /usr/bin/phpcs

in XAMPP (windows) you can find the file in the php root folder (e.g. C:\xampp\php\phpcs.bat)

"Paramaters":

--standard=<path/to/joomla-platform>/build/phpcs/Joomla The path to the Joomla! coding standards.

--report=emacs The will generate a simple list containing links to the error files

Optional you may want to specify -p for "progress" or -n for "errors only".

The last parameter has to be $FilePath$ specifying the file or folder you want to sniff.